


Different Directions

by Ionaonie



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Episode Tag, Fluff, Friendship, M/M, Pre-Slash, episode s2e11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:32:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ionaonie/pseuds/Ionaonie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Morgan offers to drive Reid home after the events of Sex, Birth, Death</p>
            </blockquote>





	Different Directions

‘Come on, baby doll, let’s get you home,’ said Derek, wrapping his arm around her, kicking himself for not accepting her invitation to go out of a drink with her and Reid. He should have been there for them both.

‘That would be good,’ agreed Garcia. She leant further into him and he hugged her close.

She stopped walking and frowned up at him. ‘Wait, no.’

Derek frowned down at her. ‘No? What do you mean, no? Garcia you...’

‘Oh, I’m not saying I’m not going to go home, I am. JJ will take me.’

‘Garcia-’

‘Reid needs you.’

‘Gideon is-’

‘So not what Reid needs right now,’ interrupted Garcia, rolling her eyes at him.

‘Garcia,’ warned Derek.

‘He’ll say mentor-like things. This case hit Reid hard. He needs a friend to talk to. He tells you more than anyone else on the team.’

‘He does not.’ Derek ignored the funny feeling in his stomach at the idea that Reid might trust him more than anyone on the team.

‘Don’t argue with me, gorgeous. Just talk to him. Garcia was glaring up at him, determined. Derek knew that there was no point trying to argue with her.

He looked around. ‘Where’s JJ?’

‘I’m here,’ said JJ from behind him. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take her home.’

Derek brushed an errant hair behind Garcia’s ear. ‘Are you sure you’ll be okay, baby girl?’

‘Of course I’ll be okay.’ She gave him a watery smile.

‘You’ll call me if you need anything, yeah?’

‘Of course I will.’

'Go,' said JJ, shooing him away. 'We'll be fine.'

He nodded. He turned and seeing Gideon and Reid near the car, he jogged down to join them.

‘Hey, Gideon, I’ll drive Reid home.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah.’ He turned to Reid, trying to ignore the red covering his hands. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

Reid made as if he was going to wrap his arms around himself, before he remembered that his hands were covered in Nathan’s blood. ‘I...um...are you sure you don’t mind?’

‘Would I have offered if I wasn’t?’

Reid offered him a thin smile. ‘No, I suppose not.’

‘Then get in the car, Reid.’

Gideon nodded to Derek as he pulled the door closed.

He pulled away from the curb before glancing down at Reid’s hands, watching him rubbing the towel uselessly over them.

‘Let’s go and get you cleaned up before we take you home.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Quantico. It’s closest.’

‘Okay.’

Reid kept his hands in his lap, wrapped up in the towel.

‘Hey, kid,’ said Derek softly. ‘You know earlier, when you said you know what it’s like to be afraid of your own mind?’

‘Yeah. What about it?’

‘What did you mean?’

‘I have a lot of...stuff in my head. Lots of information just, you know, whirling around. Sometimes I find it difficult to find a way out of it. It was worse-’ He licked his lips, a small from marring his brow ‘-worse when I was a kid.’

‘Yeah?’ He kept his tone light and casual, hoping that Reid would keep talking. His shoulder's though were filled with tension.

Reid shrugged. ‘Well, I had few, if any, friends and mom, was, well, mom. I didn’t really have anyone to pull me out of my head.’

‘Is it still like that now?’ Derek certainly hoped not.

Reid thought about it for a minute. ‘In a way it’s worse because I know so much more now than I did when I was a kid, but also it’s better.’

‘Better how?’ Normally he would have stopped pushing Reid, but this he felt he needed to know because the idea that Reid still found it difficult didn’t sit well with Derek. He hoped that Reid knew that the entire team was there for him.

‘I have you guys.’

‘We help?’ The worry that had been cramping his stomach lessened somewhat.

‘Definitely.’ Reid sounded so definite that Derek didn’t bother to question him. Mostly because Reid couldn’t lie successfully to any of them for very long.

‘How?’

Reid fiddled with the towel. ‘You treat me normally. You tease me.’ He frowned. ‘Well, people have always teased me but when I was a kid it was the kind of teasing that made me want to hide in my head.’

He didn’t want what was supposed to be friendly teasing to upset Reid. If he had known... ‘Reid-’

He glanced over at Derek. ‘What?’

Something about what Derek was thinking must have shown on his face because Reid’s eyes widened.

‘No, no. It’s not like that now. I mean, it took me a couple of months to realise you weren’t being mean to me, but once I did, I liked it.’ He trailed off at the end, glancing down at his hands, looking slightly embarrassed.

Derek glanced in his mirror before turned into Quantico. ‘Well, okay then. But, Reid, you promise me, if I start making you uncomfortable, you tell me.’

‘You won’t.’

‘Promise me, Reid.’ He injected a bit of command in his tone of voice.

Reid sighed. ‘Fine. I promise.’

‘Good.’ He opened his door. ‘Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.’

\-----------

While Reid was in the bathroom, Derek phoned Garcia to make sure she was alight.

‘You’re checking up on me, aren’t you, my gorgeous man?’

Derek smiled. ‘You caught me, pretty mama. What you going to do about it?’

Garcia laughed. ‘I’ll forgive you on one condition.’

‘Yeah, what’s that?’

‘You tell me our resident genius is okay.’

Derek rubbed a hand over his face. ‘He’s still wound up but he’s talking to me.’ Not about what Garcia wanted, but it was still talking.

‘You’re still with him?’ She sounded relieved.

‘Yeah.’

‘Why can’t I hear him then?’ Getting quizzed by Garcia was never fun, especially since he wasn’t very good at evading her questions.

‘Why can’t I hear JJ?’ he retorted. Offense was always the best form of defence, after all.

‘Because she’s in the bathroom.’

He leant against the wall next to the bathroom. ‘Well, so’s Reid. Happy?’

‘So you are still with him then?’

‘Of course I am, baby doll. He’s washing his hands. Then I’ll take him home.’

‘Don’t...’ she trailed off.

‘What? You want me to take him out?’ He ignored how that could be interrupted. Mostly because he knew that Garcia wouldn’t go there.

‘Can you see Reid wanting to go drinking and dancing after tonight?’

‘I can’t see Reid wanting to go out drinking and dancing, ever. Can you?’

Garcia laughed. ‘No, not really.’

Reid walked out of the bathroom, absently rubbing his hands together, but thankfully blood free.

‘Am I going home now?’

‘Talk to you later, sweetness.’ He snapped his phone shut. He put his hand on the small of Reid’s back. ‘Come on, kid, let’s get out of here.’

Reid looked at him, all wide-eyed and innocent. ‘Home?’

‘How about a movie?’

Reid was quiet for a moment and Derek began to think he was going to refuse.

‘What movie?’

‘The Incredibles,’ he suggested. He'd been wanting to see that for a while too.

Reid was nodding almost before Derek had finished talking.

\----------

Back in the car, Derek pointed the car towards the nearest movie theatre. It was a lucky coincidence that he had been looking up movie times the day before. Reid wasn’t saying anything but Derek didn’t know how to interrupt him.

‘There was so much blood,’ Reid said eventually. ‘It, uh, it surprised me. That sounds weird, I know. I’ve seen so many crime scenes. A lot of them very bloody. But it’s always been old. But this, this was live blood. It was flowing out of Nathan so fast and I didn’t know what to do.’

‘You saved his life, Reid. I think you did everything right.’

Reid had wrapped his arms around himself while Derek had been watching the road. ‘I should have known that he was going to do something like that. He talked about killing himself and when he came to see me, it was like he was saying goodbye.’

‘Reid, you are many things, but psychic isn’t one of them.’

‘But-’

‘Kid, you can’t control what someone else does.’

Reid turned to look at him. ‘Well, that’s not strictly true, is it? We’ve seen plenty of cases where one unsub has been subservient to another.’

‘That’s not what I mean, and you know it.’

‘I should have been there for him.’

Derek braked as they hit some traffic at a light. He turned to face his friend, making sure that he was looking Reid straight in the eye. ‘You were there for Nathan. You did help him, Reid. But you can only do so much. The rest of it lies on his shoulders. You can’t do anything about that.’

‘You don’t think there was anything else I could have done?’

‘No, nothing. In point of fact, I think you went way above the line of duty in this case.’

‘I just...’

‘You can’t fix everyone. You know that.’

Reid pushed his hair back. ‘Yeah, I know. But it just felt like I should be able to help Nathan, you know?’

‘I get that.’ He knew all about expecting yourself to be able to look after and protect others. On that score he could certainly relate.

Reid smiled at him. ‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’

Reid looked around as they pulled into the car park. ‘For all of this.’

‘Any time, pretty boy, you know that,’ Derek promised him, locking the door.

‘I do.’

Derek smiled at him, slinging his arm over Reid’s shoulders. ‘Come on, let’s go watch one of your geeky movies.’

Reid tried to squirm out from under his arm. ‘You don’t have to...I know you have to pack...’

Derek tightened his hold. ‘It takes me ten minutes, tops, to pack, so quit arguing.’

Reid slumped against him. ‘If you insist.’

‘I do.’


End file.
